


Closing the Distance

by WhisperArtist



Category: Five Feet Apart (2019)
Genre: Adding to the plot, Angst, Because I have a problem with creating OCs, Bisexual Female Character, Canon Gay Character, Canonical Character Death, Chemotherapy, F/M, Hospitalization, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Lung Cancer, M/M, Showing things through a different perspective, Spoilers, Will needed someone like him to talk to, cystic fibrosis, hand wavy medical stuff, no beta reader we die like men, overuse of italicizes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2020-10-25 20:15:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20730119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhisperArtist/pseuds/WhisperArtist
Summary: We know how the story goes, but there's always more to something than we see at first. Blanks that need to be filled in and perspectives that we need to here.This is Five Feet Apart told from the point of view of one Ava Smyth. She's known Stella and Poe for at least a decade. She's known Will for days. She will do anything for them to reach their happily ever after.





	1. Day One

**Author's Note:**

> I spent an hour charting out the timeline of the books so I could fill in all the gaps I need to. I have three, almost four sections written that I will post around every day. Then I'll post as I get them done. 
> 
> I have two pre-book chapters, at least thirteen during book chapters, and at least three post book chapters written/planned out. Basically, this is going to be a long fic.

Ava sighed lightly as she sat on the bed, pushing her glasses further up her nose as she glanced around the plain room, planning how she would set it up for the next few weeks she would be stuck there. She refused to stare at the bare walls any longer than she had too and would be decorating them with the photos and posters she made sure to bring. Every time she was sent to St. Grace her first step was to personalize her room, she just wished she had one of her friends to help out.

“What’s a pretty thing like you doing in a place like this?” A familiar voice came from her open door frame. Ava turned around to see her long-time friend Poe standing there. She smiled and came over to hug him. She hadn’t seen him in person for months. They had been skyping at least once a week and, sure, not seeing each other was a _good_ thing, but she missed him.

“I just can’t seem to kick this pneumonia,” Ava said with a shrug. “I’m not contagious anymore but it doesn’t seem to want to go away.”

“I know the feeling,” Poe said. “I’m here over bronchitis. Got in yesterday.”

“Aw, that sucks,” Ava said with a wince. “Since we’ll be stuck here a while do you want to help me decorate my room?”

“I got my room all set up so why the hell not?” He replied with a smile. Ava smiled back and handed him a box of push pins. They spent an hour pinning up posters and old photos, marveling at the almost forgotten memories. They laughed at the pictures from when they were young and smiled sadly at pictures of friends they lost. They were going through loose papers when Poe looked at one and his face dropped.

“You’re doing Chemo again?”

Ava shrugged and tried to brush it off. “They think it’ll work again. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

Poe gave her a suspicious look. “Didn’t the take you off it because it wasn’t working and tanking your lung function?”

“They’re putting me back on it because my lung function _is_ tanked. I’ve officially beat you and Stella out,” Ava snapped. The look on Poe’s face made her stop and take a shaky, uneven breath. “Look, I’m down to 27% function. I don’t have any other options; this is my Hail Mary.”

Poe was silent for a moment, just reading over her regimen. He frowned at what was written there, clearly mulling something over. She knew the numbers were troubling, they were even scaring her and Ava had come to terms with the cancer destroying her lungs years ago.

“Stell’s going to lose it when she finds out,” he finally said.

“And that’s why we’re not going to tell her,” Ava countered. “She’s got more than enough to deal with right now. Stressing over me isn’t going to help.”

Poe gave her a borderline obnoxious look. “She’s coming up in two days. She’s got a sore throat and fever that doesn’t want to go away.”  
Ava sighed dramatically, stifling the coughing fit that tried to follow. That would make the next few weeks more complicated. There was no way in hell Ava could hide Chemo from Stella and the poor girl will worry insistently until they departed again. With the loss of her sister and her parents splitting, Stella didn’t have much to live for. At this point, she was only living for her parents and the people around her. It was a horrible thing to see, considering how determined Stella had been mere months earlier. Sure she still wanted to live, but she wasn’t doing it for herself.

“Sometimes I really hate you people,” Ava said, sending Poe a pointed look. He shot her a defiant smirk back before putting the paper aside and grabbing her brand new, freshly laminated Infinity War poster and taping it up alongside her Avengers and Age of Ultron posters.

“I heard there’s a new CFer around here now,” Poe said after a few minutes of silence. 

Ava hummed in acknowledgment as she wracked her brain for a name and a face. “Yeah. Tall, dark hair, I would almost say you’re type but he’s white and one hell of a troublemaker.” Poe chuckled at her attempt to find him a new boyfriend. Honestly, she would rather he get back with Micheal, but she was always on the lookout for possibilities. “He’s been in solitary since he passed out near some vending machine and caused a ward-wide panic last week.”

“So he’s _your_ type?” Poe jabbed, snickering at the affronted look that crossed her face.

“Just because my last boyfriend, and girlfriend for that matter, were a little rebellious for your taste doesn’t mean I’m into troublemakers.”

“Jeremy was hot, but he was more than a little bit of an asshole,” Poe said. “So what’s his name?”

“Will. Will Newman.”

After a few hours of setting up her room, Ava was left with no energy and barely any air. Poe left around five to go get dinner from the cafeteria and Ava knew she should do the same, but she couldn’t bring herself to do so. Instead, she sat on her bed watching people, mostly nurses, walk past. She really should eat, considering how nauseous and tired she would be tomorrow. Antibiotics first, Chemo later, her doctor had said. Two or three days of antibiotics to hopefully kick the low-grade fever she had been fighting for weeks now before her immune system got wiped out by Chemo.

Ava took a ragged breath, biting back a curse that would only further deplete her limited oxygen. The logical part of herself told her that she really should put on the cannula sitting _right_ there but the ever stubborn part of her refused to comply. Refused to be humbled enough to accept assistance doing something as simple as breathing. It was only a matter of time before her pulse ox dropped low enough for Barb to come to check on her anyway. 

Another ragged breathing became a coughing fit in short order. Ava could feel her chest tightening, forcing the ever precious oxygen from her body. Her back burned something fierce as she tried to force herself to take deep breaths. Yeah right, like that ever worked for anyone who couldn’t breathe. Barb would be busting in soon. Ava could already hear Barb lecturing her about risking her health and all that, but she couldn’t be bothered to care. She wasn’t going to die today, so what’s the big fuss?

_Oh, maybe that’s it,_ Ava thought as her vision began to swim from lack of oxygen. A figure, blurry but clearly Barb appeared in her unfocused view (funny, she was pretty sure she still had her glasses on). Ava was sure that she was being lectured, but she couldn’t hear much over the now subsiding coughing fit. Under normal circumstances, Ava would have fought as Barb forced her to lie down and refuse the cannula when it was handed over, but she didn’t have the strength. It took another minute for the coughing to fade to a dull ache in her chest, the pain only shooting across her back when she tried to force a too-deep breath. Ava closed her eyes for a moment, savoring the oxygen and willing the ringing in her ears to go away, before opening them again to face Barb.

“You are the most stubborn girl I have ever met, do you know that?” Barb said, hands on her hips. “If you keep testing your limits you’re going to run your lungs ragged and then you’ll have to put off Chemo until you recover.”

Ava sighed lightly. “I know, I know. It just caught me by surprise, you know? I was fine all afternoon with Poe and then I just _wasn’t.”_ Barb raised an eyebrow at the lie but didn’t call her out. Ava couldn’t tell if Barb bought it or was just going along for everyone’s sake.

“Well, don’t do it again. Your lungs can’t take the up and down like they used to anymore,” Barb said finally, giving Ava once last once over.  
“Yeah, I know,” Ava agreed, though far more resigned then she should be. Barb gave her a small nod before turning and walking out, leaving the door open without Ava having to ask. She smiled at that. They had fought for years over that door and only once Ava had turned sixteen did they come to an agreement. Her door could be open as long as she was awake. Once she fell asleep at night Barb would close it and it was always open when Ava woke up in the morning.

Rolling onto her side, Ava looked out her door and watched the bright corridor, the nosepiece of her frames cutting into her face. It wasn’t exactly late, but she knew Poe would be asleep or close to it as would most of the long-time residents. St. Grace was rarely a hopping place any time after ten o’clock even though one rarely had to function at early hours. Ava herself was on the cusp of sleep when a shadow moved passed her doorway, stopped, and came back. She looked up to see the new kid, Will, standing there, six feet away, watching her.

“You’re lips are blue.” Was all he said before continuing on whatever sure-to-piss-off-Barb mission he was on.


	2. Trouble Making

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ava and Poe have a conversation before they go off to cause some mischief

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's a little short, but the next one is a lot longer

“I’m serious Poe, I want to talk to him,” Ava said from where she stood in his doorway. Poe was in the process of fixing one of the wheels of his skateboard, dragging it on longer than strictly necessary so she couldn’t drag him off on an adventure. It was their last few hours of uncontrolled fun before Stella showed up, and he was wasting it.

“If you want to talk to him, just talk to him,” Poe said, continuing to turn the screwdriver insanely slow. They had spent the past few minutes discussing Will Newman, most of that time filled with Poe’s unrelenting insistence that Ava had a crush on him.

“It’s not that easy,” Ava insisted, taking off her glasses to chew on them. A habit she tried to kick years ago with little success. “He’s a mess and he doesn’t want to be here. He’s going to rub Stella the wrong way -- you know he will -- and I’ll have to run interference.”

“Look, Ave, I love you, but even you shouldn’t be hanging to close to him,” Poe said, pointing his screwdriver at her. “You said it yourself, he’s got B.cepacia. Just because it won’t mess you up like us doesn’t mean you aren’t at risk.”

“Trust me, I know that,” she agreed, walking over and sitting in one of the green leather chairs next to Poe’s bed. “It needs to happen though. For all of our sakes.”

Poe gave her that look but relented with a breathless sigh. After a few more moments he set the screwdriver down and leaned his skateboard against his bed before standing up and looking her in the eye. “Fine, I’ll help you. Now, are we going or not?”

A smile slid across Ava’s face as she slid her glasses back onto her face and got back to her feet. They had a few hours until her next round of antibiotics and she intended to make the most of it before she felt like crap again. They rarely got the chance to act like kids anymore, especially with the three of them creeping closer to eighteen every day. It was only a matter of time before they really weren’t kids anymore so Ava was determined to soak it up while she could.


	3. Day One - Number 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stella shows up and Ava goes to talk to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel the need to say that the number of different types of IVs is astounding.

Ava groaned as she woke up from her afternoon nap, body aching from sleeping in an uncomfortable position and stomach churning from the antibiotics that flooded her system. She was used to it after years of treatments that never completely agreed with her body, but that didn’t make it suck any less. Stella had arrived today, but she couldn’t bring herself to get out of bed to say ‘hi’ yet. Maybe after dinner, she reasoned, only to have her stomach turn violently. Before, then, so the smell of food wouldn’t be lingering. Anything to avoid throwing up in general, but especially in places that weren’t her own room.

Ava stayed in bed, glaring at the wall as her stomach turned and flipped, for at least half an hour. She was sure Barb knew she was awake, Barb always knew, and would come to check on her since her door remained closed. A perk of having her room so close to the nurse’s station was that they could always tell if her door was open or closed. That was systematically also a downfall, but things can’t always be perfect.  
The door opened as Ava tried to will away another violent bout of nausea, praying for Barb to come and help. The goddess herself walked in with an IV bag and a syringe in hand. Ava gave her a weak smile from her nest of blankets, emerging slightly to fish for her glasses somewhere on her night table and put them on her face.

“My hero!” She praised without much energy to back it.

“How are you feeling Love?” Barb asked with a gentle smile.

“Awful,” Ava admitted. “I haven’t felt like I was gonna puke this badly in years.”

Barb gave her a sympathetic smile as she hung the IV bag and straightened out the line. Ava eagerly pulled the blankets down from around her chest and fished the lumens to her Central IV from her shirt. She already needed it for chemo, so it was easier to add a line or two and just do everything from there. Not to mention the fact that her veins were almost unusable on a good day. Barb slid the line in, setting it to run for an hour given the speed of the drops before inserting the syringe into one of the other lumens and injecting it.

“That should help with the nausea,” Barb said once she was done. “We’ll wait until tonight to do your next round of antibiotics, okay?”

“The idea of sleeping through this mess is heavenly. Thanks, Barb,” Ava responded, burying herself back into her blanket nest. Barb laughed at her as she capped the needle. “What time is it?”

“Around two,” Barb said. “You need to be somewhere?” Ava giggled at the implications in her tone.

“Just Stella’s room before dinner. I haven’t gotten the chance to say hi and I don’t think I can stomach the smell of food yet.” That sympathetic look was back and Barb gently patted her shoulder. Ava was used to it at this point. If she could count on anything when in the hospital it’s that her normal food intake would go right out the window. Whether it be around the clock access to chocolate milkshakes or treatment making her feel like actual shit, her eating habits never remained the same for long.

With one last smile, Barb left, leaving Ava alone. Not bothering to take her glasses off, Ava went back to dozing. It wasn’t like she had a better way to pass the hour that her IV drip would take. Barb came back in time to wake her from a really weird dream that she forgot instantly, removing the IV line and scolding her in that motherly tone that she shouldn’t sleep with her glasses on. Barb mentioned how Stella was finally getting to keep her med cart in her room and that her walls were already as colorful as Ava’s before leaving to check on whoever else was next on her list.

Ava knew she should at least consider moving sometime soon. She really should have showered this morning, but she just couldn’t force herself to get out of bed. Stella wouldn’t mind anyway, they had seen each other in far worse states than going a day without a shower. What Ava _really_ needed to do was get out of bed and get dressed. Laying around wasn’t helping her look even slightly presentable for when she would go see Stella.

With a sigh, she unwrapped the blankets from her body and forced herself to stand up. She swayed slightly as blood rushed to the rest of her body, but it passed quicker than she expected. Ava shuffled over and closed her door before going to her bathroom to catch a glimpse at her reflection. God, she looked horrid. Her usual dark circles were even more pronounced and she couldn’t tell whether it was the lighting or if she was just that pale. Her dark hair, which she kept in an undercut since she was a teen on Chemo and losing her hair, was both plastered to her forehead and sticking up at an incredible angle.

Ava just scowled at the mirror before grabbing her hairbrush from the bag she left in there and attempting to tame the mess on her head. Once it was less knotted it remained flat and pasted to her face. Clearly unable to avoid it, she grabbed some gel and styled it just enough so she wouldn’t look like an absolute trainwreck. She considered adding concealer for half a second before deciding that she didn’t give a fuck and that Stella wouldn’t give one either. Ava put her contacts on the sink but she doubted she would be using them any time soon.

At least semi-satisfied with her appearance, Ava left the bathroom to get sort of dressed. She looked at the cannula sitting beside her bed for a moment before deciding not to push her luck especially when she was going to see Stella. She grabbed her portable oxygen from where it was charging and slid the cannula on and over her ears, getting briefly reminded of why she brought her contacts in the first place. Slinging the strap onto the rolling office chair that sat in the corner of her room, Ava sat down and rolled over to the dresser she had piled her clothes into two days earlier. Her normal black sweatpants were an easy find, but of course, her old Trinity College sweatshirt was missing. She rooted around in the few bags that were still sitting around only to find it at the bottom of her backpack.

“Wow, I’m fantastic at packing,” she mumbled to herself before throwing on the clothes and ruffling her hair a bit so it wouldn’t stick. She put on a pair of socks and stepped into her slides, hearing her mom complain about how ugly socks and slides were. Deeming herself dressed, Ava grabbed her phone and put it into her sweatshirt pocket before slinging her portable oxygen over her shoulder and leaving her room.

Ava waved hello to the various nurses in the hall as she walked to Stella’s room. The door was closed as always so Ava knocked before letting herself in. Stella was sitting in one of the crap leather chairs, pushed up against the window, with her laptop resting on the sill. Working on her app, Ava would guess. The other girl looked up as the door opened and did a double-take when she saw Ava in her doorway.

“Oh my god, Ave!” She cried, rushing over to hug her. “I didn’t know you were here.”

Ava chuckled, giving her long-time friend a light squeeze. “Yeah, I made Poe promise not to tell you. I wanted it to be a surprise. I would have been here sooner but antibiotics are kicking the crap out of me.”

Stella grimaced, sitting down on her bed, leaving enough room for Ava to follow suit. “I’m glad that I don’t react to antibiotics like you do.”

“Oh yeah, it’s no fun,” Ava agreed. “So what’s been going on? We haven’t talked in a little while.”

“Nothing new really,” Stella said with a shrug. “Dad moved into a new apartment. Mom’s gone down her research spiral again.”

Ava nodded solemnly. “I get that. Mom started up again when the doc suggested I go back to the hospital.”

“Oh, Poe told me to ask about your treatment,” Stella said suddenly. Ava couldn’t resist cursing Poe out. “What? What’s going on?”

“Poe’s an ass, that’s what,” Ava replied. “I didn’t want to tell you if I could get away with it, but I’m starting Chemo again. I’m supposed to do another round of antibiotics tomorrow and then they’ll probably start it the next day. That is if this fever finally goes away.”

Stella was silent, wringing her hand together in thought. Maybe Ava’s attempt to keep this from Stella was wrong, but Poe definitely didn’t help. The girl was stressed enough, now she would be worrying about one more person. 

“Please, please don’t worry about me.” Ava took Stella’s hand and the other girl looked up at her. “This is exactly why I didn’t want to tell you. I don’t want you to stress about me. You have far better things to worry about. I can’t watch your health suffer because of me.”

“Okay, I wouldn’t worry about you,” Stella agreed with a soft smile. “But I will be all over you.”

Ava laughed. “I’m not the one you should be worrying about! Wait until you meet Will… That boy is going to drive you new kinds of insane. Now tell me about the senior trip.”


	4. First Meeting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stella and Will finally met and Ava knows how this is going to end.

Ava was sitting on her bed on her laptop attempting to do some of the homework she had already missed since antibiotics weren’t currently ripping her to shreds. Her teacher, a one of a kind asshole, still expected her to get her assignments done on time even though she was currently in the hospital a day away from starting chemo. Her mom was in a heated argument with him and the school which probably wasn’t helping her workload or grade.

Ava just closed google classroom in favor of watching Netflix when Stella walked in her perpetually open door. She looked halfway between completely annoyed and totally flustered. Ava was pretty sure she knew what, or rather who, this was about.

“You were so right. Will is completely infuriating.” Ding ding ding, we have a winner.

“I told you he would drive you insane,” Ava agreed with a smirk. 

“He let his friends use his room for sex last night!” Stella exclaimed, blushing slightly. Ava raised an eyebrow, but she wasn’t exactly surprised by that. “Then he followed me up to the NICU and said that I was lurking!”

“Were you lurking?” Ava joked, laughing when Stella flushed a bright pink. “Look, he hasn’t exactly interacted with kids our age recently. He was probably just curious.”

Stella started pacing across the room. Will was working her up far more than Ava had expected. It was only a matter of time before she would force herself into his life, especially since he wasn’t doing his treatments. Stella would have a damn conniption when she finds out.

“He thinks he’s _cute,”_ Stella continued on. “And he’s got _B.cepacia._ I can’t believe I got so close to him!”

Ava shot up. “Wait, what? How close were you?” Sure, she knew that Will had that nasty bugger, but Stella’s definition of close scared her. _Close_ meant within six feet which was already close enough for a rogue cough to screw over Stella’s only chance at new lungs.

“Probably a little less than six feet,” Stella told her. “I had my mask on most of the time, but that was so close…”

“I’m not saying avoid him completely because he could really use some friends that have at least something in common with him, but you need to be careful.” Stella scoffed as she mentioned common ground. As much as Stella wanted them to be nothing alike, they were both CFers which meant some degree of shared experiences. 

“Trust me, I have no intention of getting close to him,” Stella assured her. Ava wasn’t exactly convinced. She was pretty sure that hint of flustered that she detected earlier was because Stella was starting to develop a crush on Will. Ava couldn’t deny the appeal, he was beautiful, but that wouldn’t end well for anyone involved.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm a relatively healthy teen so if at any point something I write about CF or cancer is just completely wrong, please tell me so I can try to fix it. I've put a lot of research into this, but I'm no doctor and I don't know everything.


End file.
